Assassination of Carter Harrison III

On October 28, 1893, Patrick Eugene Prendergast fatally shot Carter Harrison III (the mayor of Chicago) inside Harrison's residence. Prendergast's assassination of Harrison was driven by a delusion Prendergast held that he was entitled to be appointed the city's corporation counsel (a role he held no qualification for), and that Harrison had wrongfully deprived him of this.

The assassination occurred two days prior to the closing day of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and led to the cancellation of the world's fair's closing ceremony. It quickly drew comparisons to the 1881 assassination of U.S. president James A. Garfield by Charles J. Guiteau. Like Prendergast, Guiteau had been a deranged office seeker whose actions were motivated by their having not been given a patronage appointment that he perceived he was entitled to. Harrison's death was met with large-scale public mourning in Chicago, with his funeral ranking as one of the most-attended in history. The national reaction was also immense, with the assassination becoming one of the most sensationalized events of its day. For a long time afterwards, Harrison's assassination was considered a well-remembered event in American history. However, it has since fallen into relative obscurity.

In the subsequent murder trial, Prendergast was found guilty of murder in the first-degree, and was sentenced to death. Legal efforts led by attorney Clarence Darrow to forestall his execution (including an attempt to have Prendergast legally found to be currently insane, a condition which under Illinois law would have rendered him ineligible for execution) were ultimately unsuccessful. Prendergast was executed by hanging.